Net Worth Update: $511,782.60 (+$17k – Regained Title!)

That time again to update ye old net worth and do some checking in on our money! Y’all have a good month over there? Anyone cross some epic milestones?

I’d like to say that I was a straight up hustler and re-crossed that Half-A-Millionaire status all by myself, but truth be told it was the market’s doing though I did plant the original seeds :)

And unlike last month when I straight up freaked out about my car purchase (no more regrets!!) I promise to keep my emotions in check this time around. All those changes going on totally hijacked my emotions and I haven’t been more ready to move on to the next chapter…

Which began two weeks ago! The wife is at her new job earning that 2nd income (YES!), the kids are down the street playing with their new daycare friends, and I’m here typing to you at our new place while I pretend “to work” :) So here’s to a calmer future!

Here’s how the month of July went down finance-wise:

CASH SAVINGS(-$2,319.97): Another big drop in reserves due to moving and not focusing on monetizing my projects enough (why can’t I just get paid to blog to you all day? :)), but this should be the last month of it. The wife starts getting paychecks next week, and I’m back to focusing on the future of my projects and how to align my goals with making money at the same time. Something I’ve been struggling with lately since it usually messes with “the heart” of it all. But can’t ignore it any longer!

DIGIT & “CHALLENGE EVERYTHING” ACCOUNTS: Just another reminder that I’ve mixed all my ‘savings’ accounts into one main line item here in the net worth breakdown. I’m still rockin’ Digit which saves me hundreds every month (now up to $5,494.64!), but my minimalist side finally got a hold of me and didn’t like seeing all the areas split up like it had been. Hopefully it makes it easier to follow too!

BROKERAGE (ACORNS) (+$29.42): This has been on autopilot going on a little over a year now. Every month Acorns invests $20-$30 for me by automatically rounding up all my daily transactions. It’s pretty cool if you want an easy way to invest more – check it out.

IRA: ROTH(s) (+$3,900.94): Nice bump! Haven’t added a thing in months, but the market continues to climb making its customers nice and happy ;) Unless you happen to be one of those who cashes out every time it freaks out and waits too long to get back in. The trick is just plowing more and more in whenever you can and letting it ride! I only wish I had more money to do this every time a Brexit or whatever happens!

IRA: SEP(+$15,300.62): Huge jump here too! A 4% one! Similar to the Roths, we haven’t touched this in quite some time so it’s totally just moving along with the markets. And since I’m fully invested in Vanguard’s VTSAX index fund, it just mirrors the overall economy as a whole. Which has been doing fairly well lately.

Here’s a snapshot of our account since switching over two years ago… Keep in mind that it shows *performance* and not the entire amount actually invested (that’s $400k now):

(This is exactly why you sit tight through the madness – it corrects over time!)

AUTO VALUES(-$305.00): Nothing major to report here. Just depreciating as is normal, though I’d imagine the amounts being dropped will be somewhat higher now that we’ve swapped the Caddy for the Lexus ;) As much as I started really regretting not buying it from a private party, I’ve since come to terms with it and realize I did the best I could within the time frame I had. And even more importantly, I’m still very much enjoying riding it around town! I’m starting to understand just what the fuss is about them, haha… Though I still feel VERY out of place owning one.

Here’s the values of our two cars via KBB.com:

Lexus: $14,373.00

Toyota: $4,257.00

AUTO LOAN:(-$418.34): Operation “round up debt payments” are back in action! I used to do this with our home mortgages – rounding up to the nearest $100th – to get them paid off faster, so it feels kinda good in a nerdy way to have another mission like this again. Our normal payments are around $340/mo, but we threw in $500 this round as well as a little extra we got back from refinancing it already last month. Was able to spend more time looking into it all, and got our rate down from 3.45% to 2.75%. Only saves us a few dollars a month – but hey, one time work for future savings! The best kind!

And here’s how the last year has gone in total, for those visual people out there:

And that wraps up July! Very much looking forward to getting all these cash problems out of the way and re-gaining momentum again… If it weren’t for banking so much while times were good, we’d be looking pretty bad here! And I guarantee you would have taken my blogger card from me by now ;)

Hope your situations are poised to get better too! It’s not always roses all the time!

As always, here’s the list of all 90+ updates we’ve done over the years:J’s Net Worth Journey. And here’s a look at how 229 other bloggers are faring too: The Ultimate Net Worth Tracker (via my other site, Rockstar Finance). See if there’s anyone in your own range there that you can follow and get motivated by! The amounts range from $500,000 in DEBT, all the way up to $3.3 MILLION plus.

If you're not a spreadsheet guy like me and prefer something more automated (which is fine, whatever gets you to take action!), you can try your hand with a free Personal Capital account instead.

Personal Capital is a cool tool that connects with your bank & investment accounts to give you an automated way to track your net worth. You'll get a crystal clear picture of how your spending and investments affect your financial goals (early retirement?), and it's super easy to use.

Hey, if that means you’re killing off debt like a champ then WAY TO GO!!! The first few milestones are honestly the best. $0.00 (if in debt), $50,000 and then $100,000. From $100k and up it’s all nice and makes you feel great, but thrilling-wise it doesn’t compare to the first ones.. I think because it’s a slower process and you’ve already learned and set things in place so it’s all kinda on automation, if that makes sense? I think the biggest jump in joy will be $1 Million :)

That’s absolutely right J. I still remember how great I felt when NW crossed $100k, but not so much when it crossed $500k. Reaching $1 mill feels good but that’s only because mass media popularized it, otherwise it’s just a number. So, extrapolating backwards, negative to zero would give the greatest satisfaction. Getting out of debt, therefore, is the biggest thrill. This feeeling of lower satisfaction when your net worth keeps going up is called ‘marginal utility’ that I cover in one of my articles on my site. It’s a well known economics and human psychology principle.

I know you are mostly joking but I think a lot of people equate extreme cheapness with being financially savvy. In fact buying a higher quality product that will cost you less overtime can be the most financially sound move. It’s not like the Lex really cost that much anyway.

Also, while I hate loans in general, interest rates are such that hes probably getting a 1% discount by financing (adjusted for inflation). But I do agree that if he would have gone out and bought a new Lexus fresh off the lot I might have to reconsider the blog. I look at it like this. Would I go out and buy a gently used vehicle that 1. served my family and 2. Someone else already took the depreciation hit on? Yes, in fact its my 2011 Honda odyssey touring, sitting in my garage, that I paid $28K for with low miles and a new MSRP of $45K. I plan to drive it into the ground and I do not feel that this vehicle was in excess, which I think that the most important barometer. I like Financial Samurai’s 10% rule for vehicles, I think it really is sound. So if you make $200k a year then a $20K car is perfectly reasonable.

You said it way more elegantly than I, haha… thanks :) Though I’m not as hardcore as Financial Samurai wished we all were. Not making near $200k these days but luckily we’re all allowed to make our own decisions!

I am mostly joking, and I have no intention of reconsidering this awesome blog. But it does rub me the wrong way, that a personal finance enthusiast like J$ got a car loan. And for at car with a low mileage and high insurance cost.

Perhaps I’m also a little bit jealous. I paid more for my wife’s teeny tiny car due to the 200 % registration tax over here.

I hear where you’re coming from :) In a perfect world we’d all pay cash for everything (even our homes!) but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The real thing to watch for here is how long it takes me to pay it off!

Hey J$, I’m relatively new to your site. Congrats on crossing back over the half-million mark and l love your detailed net worth report. I just analyzed my investment performance for so far this year and I was up a little over 10% due to the fact I had thrown a Vanguard Precious Metals fund into the mix. It has almost doubled for the year!

Nice! I love gold and silver stuff but stick to it in my coin collection vs funds… Just don’t know enough to really invest in it well other than the “it goes up when everything’s crashing and down when everything’s growing” rule of thumb. I have a friend who used to hoard gold and silver bars in his safe back in 2010. He must have cashed out $500,000-$1,000,000 in stocks cuz he swore the apocalypse was coming! And he worked in banking!

Congrats on recrossing that milestone! I’m always torn when the markets have big months like this. On the one hand it feels good and looks good for my net worth. On the other hand I am far enough from retirement that I know rationally I should want the market to stay lower for a while.

If it helps, think about all those people who are about to retire/in retirement now though and how sucky it would be if it all crashed right at the time they need their $$ the most :( That usually makes me feel better about things as well as less greedy!

Hey J$, Congrats on regaining the title! Half Millionaire is great!! Had a great month here at the “Cash Collector” House as we approach Millionaire status. As of August 1st we are $28,346.90 away from the Big Goal!!

Thanks Man! My spreadsheet pretty much mirrors yours, My projection to reach the Big $1MM was 4/1/17, but at this pace if things keep going I hope to reach still by then end of 2016. I will let you know when I hit that number.

Some people collect Baseball cards, or Coins, trinkets from travels. I collect Cash, in any and all denominations.

One question: If your auto loan carries only a 2.75% interest rate, why pay it down more aggressively than necessary? You’d almost certainly obtain a better long-run overall rate of return by investing the difference instead. Just a humble thought.

I think right now it just bugs me seeing the debt there and emotionally prefer to just have it all nixed, but financial-wise you’re totally right. Investing that in the market will almost certainly net me way more than 2.75%! I might change my strategy down the road, but for now I’m cool with the killing off route and you really can’t go wrong either way. The worst would be just not doing anything at all!

I completely relate to the emotional impact of low-interest car loans. Currently, our low interest auto loan is our only non-mortgage debt. We could write a check on September 1 and wipe it away, and part of me really wants to do so because the debt bothers me. I’m not quite at that point, yet, but I’m getting there!

Also depends on how much of a cash cushion you have too :) If you’re sitting on a ton then I’d be much more comfortable paying it off and/or investing it all. If you’re running low like I currently am, then no way I’d pay it off as you def. need a good emergency fund set up!

Wasn’t July great :) !? Congrats on regaining your half mil title! And it’s great you have that 2nd income now – I can imagine that will help tremendously.

August was good to us too. Market gains + home appraisal came back $35,000 more than I had been valuing it at. Here’ s hoping to keep it going in August! (I still haven’t gotten up the nerve to share our net on Rockstar, but maybe soon…)

Nice! I think that’s super reasonable personally. I didn’t even take out selling expenses in mine but def. a more conservative way to do it. We had our realtor run comps for us once a year when we used to have mortgages, and when we eventually sold it it was actually spot on! Only off by $1.00 – hah.

Speaking of feeling out of place in a fancier car, years ago my dad got a Cadillac after his Pontiac came to the end of its life, When he first had it, he was parking around the corner from work because he was embarrassed. It wore off, but I loved that story. I think it shows you’re both good folks who aren’t in it to be flashy!

And honestly, owning a luxury car has really opened up my eyes more as to *other* reasons why people would ever pony up for such a thing. I used to think it was all more to be flashy and cool too, but honestly they’re just freakin’ NICE to drive! My wife never cared about what car she had at all thinking they were all the same, and then sitting in this one just once completely opened her eyes haha…

So yeah, people do get them just to show off and what not, but there are other reasons too which I’m better understanding now. Though of course none of it really matters if you can’t afford it :)

Congrats on passing half a million once again!
I am shopping for a new (to us) car and am trying to avoid any of the issues you ran into.
We will be replacing our polluting VW diesel, which they will be buying back in October or November, so we have plenty of time to find the right car. The best part is we plan on buying a car for less than VW will be giving us, which will let us pocket a few thousand dollars.

Nice! Plenty of time to find a good deal too :) If you go the private party route, just make sure to take it to a mechanic you trust to look it over first. They only charge a little for it, and then if anything comes up you can use it to help in negotiations. It’s also a quick way to tell the honesty of the person you’re buying it from :) If they quickly freak out or say no, then prob smart to move right on to the next one!

Congrats on being past the half million milestone – that’s fabulous! :) And I noticed that you drive a Toyota… they’re one of my 2 favorite auto manufacturers because their vehicles are soooo reliable! We just sold our Toyota mind you, but kept our Honda (the other brand on my 2 favorite list).

A lot of our net worth is in home equity, which we’re not particularly pumped about but hey, what can you do. Generally, we acknowledge that it’s there, but kind of ignore it for retirement planning and just focus on the liquid stuff.

Cool news J, keep up the good work. A few more months like that and you should be able to get through a minor market contraction and still be above the 500k mark.

I told the wife we had crossed the half million dollar mark (Assets $722,860, Debts $186,121, Net Worth $536,739). Her response YAY, when do we hit one million?? Hehehe Seriously though Its going to be a while. There is lots of time to build up anticipation for that milestone. Perhaps as the numbers climb it will add incentive to save more. It’s a great positive feedback system.

I was curious why you don’t count equity in your house as a part of your net worth? Even if you don’t consider it an investment (which I do because housing markets when viewed from an area by area basis are 100% a speculative investment: Detroit has been a very poor investment of the past 20 years and San Fransisco has been an absurdly strong investment but I digress), most people would still at least accept them as a store of value so the Principal portion of your monthly housing payment should be added to your net worth on a monthly basis.

I would think the most recently appraised value of your home should show in assets and current outstanding home loan balance should show in liabilities.

We don’t own a house – we rent :) But when we used to I did include both mortgages and the estimated value of it in my net worth reports. Some people don’t like doing that, but I look at my net worth as a “snapshot” of where all my money/assets are, so to me it makes sense to include in there. Some will even only include the mortgage without the value/equity at all! Super hardcore! :)

Oh yeah – keep going!! $25k and $50k milestones are some of the best! And as you’re probably noticing already it grows even faster despite you putting in the same level of work :) Pretty cool if you ask me.

Yeaaa back up over that 500k! That stock market has been on fire this month and with that jobs report yesterday hopefully it keeps it going in August. Nice to hear your wife will be bringing in some more income for you all too!

Congrats on re-attaining the half mil. mark. Curious about one thing though. I see your net worth is 99% in tax advantaged vehicles, leaving the vast bulk of your wealth subject to access limitations if there was ever any non-traditional retirement uses that come up such as housing, education, travel, early retirement and the like.

Was there a specific method to your approach in balancing the tax benefits from those vehicles versus the detriments in going all in on the IRAs? I max my 401ks/IRAs also, but am closer to 50% in tax advantaged versus non-retirement/real estate assets. If there’s a previous article or podcast where you already answered this question, just let me know and I’ll find my way to it. Thanks.

To be honest I haven’t put complete thought into it all yet (I don’t ever plan on really “retiring”, though I do strongly want to become financial independent and work on stuff I love all the time!) but I def. need to start diversifying, no doubt about it. I’ll probably do it with a separate brokerage account once I get things more stabilized in the cash department.

That being said, however, I know there ARE ways to hack the system and get some of that $$$ out earlier w/out penalties! So I’m not terribly worried about it…

Check out this post from Mad Fientist – he gets all into it, pretty cool!

Nice! Love the little ones accounts as well. Market was real nice, of course, and I’ve been sitting strong at over $200K now for a few consecutive weeks, which is insane haha. I re-structured my strategy as well and am set to max out the 401k and HSA, for the tax benefits and then it drops the MAGI down low enough to dabble into the traditional IRA – all while saving me tax $$ to invest that back into the market. I can’t wait for January 2017 – I’ll be on a very much “steady” auto pilot with the investments and looking forward to a more “normalistic” monthly budget.

Congrats on regaining the half millionaire status. A nice accomplishment. Just as important it looks like you have your spending under control. This will help a lot as you move forward into millionaire status and beyond. A lot of people just focus on one end of the savings / spend matrix and it’s easy for lifestyle creep to eat into your monthly budget and force your FIRE number higher. Another great post as always.

Well, don’t pat me on the back too much for that haha… I do have our spending down more or less, outside of recent moving costs, however the area I REALLY need to focus on more right now is *earning* as I’ve been sucking at it lately… Once that’s nailed down more we’ll be sitting a lot more prettier/comfortable. Great point about the matrix though!

Got that market bump myself. Though I have decided to be a little more aggressive with my student debt payments. I would be done in 4 years (that would make 150K gone in 10 years), but now I’m shooting for being done in 2. Net worth will still be going up but not as rollercoastery as before. Great job man!

I love following your progress – of most of the FI blogs out there, yours I relate to the most right now because I feel I am about one year behind of where you are (https://traveltravelandretire.com/starting-point/) . The fact that you share specifics is suuuper helpful – certainly convinced me to do the same, make the plan public (less likely to fail I guess) and hopefully help others along the way.

I too however bought a car in 2015 which I still kind of regret. My worse financial move in a while. Hey at least I got rid of student loans!

It’s like they say, the first half million is the hardest! I hear ya on purchasing a car. We bought one in July and I can just feel the erosion of our net worth because of it. But it’s quality and should last the next 10 years.

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I, J. Money, only claim the thoughts from my head. I am not a banker, CPA, money manager or anything else of that sort. Please seek a professional for any "real" advice. More info: privacy & disclosure page